Day 7 of No Alcohol, day 1 of No Pot

Cigarettes are still okay, for now. Some people suggest you quit cigs AND pot at the same time, but I am not. I want to still have one little flimsy vice to cling to. In a month I might quit the cigs too. Okay well, so far so good, I haven’t had a toke all day. Of course I was at my Psych Nurse appointment this morning and then work, so of course I didn’t do any substances. But now is the tricky part cause it is usually when I get home that I have a joint. Eeee! But, no joint. And there is no way for me to get any anyway.
It’s kind of an experiment, at least that is what I am telling myself. I want to know if I can have a better life if I don’t use. YOU KNOW> It’s not rational to chase mood disruptions. And alcohol, well, when I got screened back in the summer for addictions, it said that I didn’t have issues with alcohol. But it is a depressant and does fuck up meds, so for now I am avoiding it too.
I’m terrified I am going to lose all my friends because they will prefer doing substances than hanging out with me. I know that’s not true, but it feels scary all the same. I tried several times to hang out with another friend without doing drugs or alcohol and we got into a big fight and now we’re not friends. I hate that. BUT it’s better to not be friends than to be friends with someone who wants to drag you down into the bowels, that really sucks.
I’m going to work on my video tonight. I am excited about this. I can stay up late because I don’t have to be at work until 1:30 tomorrow!!! 😀
The video is needing a couple fixes and some photos put in. I’ve already digitized all but ONE photo, now I need to find the proper places to put them on the timeline. And then once I have them placed and at the right length, I am going to try and work with wireframes to animate them a bit, make it really slick. The soundtrack has some sweetness, but it’s pretty minimal, I might try and add some more juicy sounds and see if I can make it just a bit tastier. I’m kind of staggered by the amount of material I have amassed to make this video from. I’m especially stoked by the photos I have digitized care of Grandma and Grandpa.
I should really hop to it if I want to have a good editing session.

The phone is still not here.

I still don’t have a phone! Meh! I hate not having a phone! Mom explicitly said “Cigarettes or a phone” and I picked cigarettes because I have a long standing issue with nicotine. I also have an issue of needing to use the phone though.
I know I could get a wall phone, you know, with a cord, for cheap. BUT i have no dough. So I have to think of something else.
If anyone has a phone in the Saskatoon area I am looking for one!
I was hoping the woman in distress-phone thief would have put it in the mailbox. What the hell was going on>>>
Those little angled brackets are really question marks. I need a new keyboard and I know where I could get one. I hope it resolves the computer issues.
I am listening to some Metric I hadn’t heard before. It’s making me happy in a melancholy way.
I haven’t had a beer since my one on Tuesday when we were eating before visiting Luke. It feels good to not drink. I’ve been observing someone I’m worried about and it’s made me want to not drink. I don’t know if I have a problem with drinking as much as my other weekend and evening substance abuse issues. But it seems like the easiest thing for me to give up for a while, so why not>>
I’m really taking my mental health more seriously now. I want to try to find my peak level of health, living a lot closer to the model for having stability. Like avoiding substances and getting to bed on time and having a routine.
Speaking of which, it is now very late and I should go to bed!

Weird day

Some woman came to my house to use my phone but took it with her and never came back. And then the cops showed up, and this cop asked me what was going on so I told him about this woman going off with my phone. And anyway, he went to where she said she lived and it doesn’t exist. So now I have to get a new phone. I unplugged it after she was gone for too long. So it’s inactive. Still, I liked that phone. It was all a little creepy.
The phone thief!
It’s kind of a boring story Mum says. Which is true, but it’s still unsettling. My phone!
The cop asked me if she looked like she could be a drug addict. Well, ANYBODY could be a drug addict, so I said yes. Could be. I didn’t ask her though. She looked like a regular person.
All that trouble just from answering the friggin doorbell!
I went over to Mum’s house and fell asleep, listening to her and my Auntie discuss visits with Luke. Right now I am alternating between tasks, I just took a break from writing to load a gig of music onto my cousin’s ipod. And then I also did facebooking and THAT was about it. And writing.
I feel like I’ve wasted my Saturday, I got thrown off by my phone theft. And then I was going to go ut but I ave no phone. So now I’m just going to watch South Park and then go to bed.

Jackson

She tried to change her name to Jackson once, but everyone liked calling her Velveeta so much it didn’t work. Boy do I miss her, I call her all the time because I never know when I will actually get to talk to her. She’s single boys and girls, so someone should really scoop her up now. Ha ha, we dated ages ago and it ended badly. BUT somehow we became friends after all that.
She hates facebook and says she will never join it. It’s kinda too bad, except then it gives me an excuse to call her because she doesn’t see all my news online. And there is always something NEW to report.
Jackson is also the name of this really old cat I remember who was scrawny and always got a claw stuck in the rug.
And Jackson is also a notorious family in show business.
I never ate Velveeta, I mean, not the cheese anyway.
She sends hilarious emails that are only three lines long, they are so minimalist.
I have her balls in an envelope waiting to be mailed. I always forget to do it when I have money and only remember when I don’t have money. It’s been three years at least of hanging onto these balls of hers.
I like all my exes, now that we’re not dating anymore. I notice there is always the one month of no sex that foretells the end. That’s always weird. Total blue clit!
I’m still hung up on one ex who rarely ever speaks to me, and then it’s only by email. Not even facebook. Email. It’s pretty sad, I miss her. But then you know I was thinking, all of my exes are pretty amazing, am I just hung up on this Particular x because she is local>>>
Things that make me hmm.
It’s important to think locally when making romantic choices.
But considering my choice babe is not interested and hasn’t seen me for three years despite living in the same city, I should really expand my horizons. I could always import a girlfriend. I’d just have to be REALLY cute! And as low maintenance as short hair!
Yay! I”M HAVING LUNCH WITH MUM! Running off after hitting post to get dressed and go out!

Tawdry Editing

I worked on art all day today because the buses weren’t running, and then later I heard they were but on special routes, and in the end I didn’t go to work for the second day because there is snow all over the friggin place. But I think the buses are running mostly normally tomorrow.
Unfortunately I don’t remember what time I am supposed to be at work. I shall have to inquire via email.
Anyway, I drank four cups of coffee and edited ALL DAY! I put one thing in that I kind of want to take out now, because it doesn’t fit. It just doesn’t feel right. It’s NASA footage and I think I should use it, if ever, in another project. I don’t want to use the same clip over and over again. People will think I am super in love with it, when I merely find it useful.
That’s just tawdry editing.
I finally saw the end of a documentary I was in, in an APTN series called Storytellers in Motion III. One episode is ALL about me! I laughed so much, ha ha ha, both as a viewer and as a participant. Everything I said I would giggle about. I never realized I did so much giggling. Also I said the C word, ON TELEVISION! Ho-la!
Well that was just too funny, my Mum and Auntie were watching at the same time, along with my friend Laurel and her Auntie. And quite possibly Laurel’s mom as well. But you know, it’s on television, I’m sure lots of people saw it.
And if you want to see it too, you should start watching APTN.
I’m trapped with all this snow, or I was. We got 35cm in two days, a huge fluffy white DUMP on the province, and quite possibly Winnipeg as well! Mum says it came from California. I hope it didn’t bring any H8 with it.
But I just saw what looked like the number 4 go by. I’m almost positive. Not something out of Sesame Street, no, a BUS!!
I’m liking this being productive, now if I can just work it into my rest of the week, I think I will actually be done my video!!! I’m using a lot of creative commons\public domain shit. It makes me a little nervous! I want to be able to show it on t.v. if anyone cares to, because then I would make some money!! It would be nice to earn some kind of living from my practice.
There, I just watched the whole thing through and wrote down the exact things I need to do to finish it! I am going to get someone to come and look at it and tell me what they think, hmm, who should I get> Mum will only come if it’s clean!
I did clean a bit today, it’s a bit nicer. Not nice. Nicer.

Big Emergency 2010

Luke had a BIG EMERGENCY this January. He had been off of his medications since November and shortly after his mother left town after the holidays he ended up stabbing himself and being rushed to the hospital after police wrestled the knife away from him. He stabbed his body and his eyes. BOTH of them.

So it’s been a few weeks of him being at RUH in the observation unit and THEN he has recently moved to another hospital which has a psych ward. He looked pretty sad when I first saw him, he was pretty out of it with being not-sane AND being on heavy duty pain meds and tranks, not to mention the damage to his body. But today I saw him and he’s doing way better, he gets better everyday. He’s making more sense now, although he doesn’t like to leave his room much. I think he is mostly frustrated that he can’t see.

Luke can’t see. He is blind. It’s pretty friggin intense and I feel for him. His eyes are looking better than they were, the scarring isn’t that bad, but it looks pretty rough still. He’s going to need some cosmetic surgery on some of his scars and some rehabilitation to deal with whatever sight he has left and his ability to get around. I am hoping he at least can see some light and shadows, because that’s what my friend Preston can see and he is fairly independent, him and his cane.

One time Preston, Deanna, and I were having a conversation about caning and SM and he suddenly said “I have a cane” “Really> Let’s see it!” He of course pulled out his cane he uses to walk with. We had a good laugh.

Soon Luke will be moved, along with all the other psych inpatients in Saskatoon, to the Irene and Leslie Dube Centre for Mental Health. Which is right where my old psych ward, Hantelman, was. I am going to the Irene and Leslie Dube Centre for Mental Health on Wednesday during their open house to see the new facilities. When I was an inpatient back in 2007 I only saw blueprints for the new ward. I remember it was shaped kind of like a big gun. My main concern is that there be individual rooms, not the gawdawful double occupancy rooms of yesteryear, that keep you from being able to jack off. Yeah yeah there’s a curtain but I still make noises, and it is embarrassing when you are someone like me who takes an average of 20 minute to come!

And masturbation is important to people’s mental health. Everyone except for people trapped in sex rehab, where it is banned! Poor Tiger. I think masturbation is important for daily release of stress, I am appalled by all situations where people can’t masturbate because of their living quarters. It’s really sex negative.

Okay, back to the main topic, no more digressions on transgressions and their emissions!

Anyway, they say the new building is beautiful, and it also has a lovely view of the river. NONE OF WHICH LUKE WILL BE APPRECIATIVE OF NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE!!! But hopefully they have some good activities he can engage in, I was told they had a hot tub but no one took me down there when I was an inpatient.

I remember the ward for really dangerous\super crazy people was downstairs, and when I went down there to get weighed this white girl hissed at me “You don’t know what traditional is!!!” Which I found kind of intimidating, for various reasons. Mostly that it’s a charge often leveled at indigenous people by other indigenous people who feel indigenousier than thou. Also that it was a white girl telling me this.

Later I met her on the grounds having a smoke, and she told me she got messages off of her vision box. I didn’t know if she meant television, but I didn’t want to inquire.

Ah, the messages, and herein lies the rub. Many messages get relayed to one during a period of “craziness,” and some, believe it or not, are actually very positive and irrevocably change humanity for the better. Other messages are not so good, case in point, poor Luke. I don’t think he even knows why he did it, and I sure as hell don’t know. I can surmise that it had something to do with what he was seeing and didn’t want to see. But I really don’t know. And we really don’t know how much of his vision he will get back.

He says today he was yelled at by some guy in the movie room for complaining that he couldn’t see what was going on. He told us when he gets his sight back he is going to find that guy and challenge him to a fight. Oh Luke.

Don’t forget about The Art!

I have forgotten about The Art. It’s sitting on my computer in the drive named Parker Posey, because I had a crush on her from the scene in DAZED AND confused where she is yelling “Suffer Bitches!” And spraying freshman with ketchup and mustard. Anyway, The Art is sitting there, needing some attention. Some high detail pruning and applying of sound and MORE visuals. It’s a really pretty piece of Art, I think. But in between working and having a life, I haven’t devoted myself to finally finishing it.

It needs a voiceover, for one thing. And it needs some more titles, and the entire list of credits is ALL Cuthands. It makes me feel funny, like there must have been more people to thank. But no, it was mostly us. I’m glad people were interested enough that it was made. I hope it finds an audience.

But I’ve been neglecting me Art, and this was the year I was going to go hard on my career. It’s terrible. Tsk tsk.

To be fair a family emergency did greet us in 2010, and that has involved a lot of phone calls and some hospital visits and then just general worry time. Art totally gets interrupted by life, and sometimes for good reason.

xcx says the cat!

Later, like a few days later, I am finishing this post. Well, I have still been neglecting the art, although I did digitize an old tape of mine from 1999 and got some stills and deinterlaced them and compressed a MPEG 4 of it and loaded it onto Facebook. It’s not as perfect as I would like, but I always end up going some different route to get it to upload and no matter what I do it looks weird on my end. I hate watching videos online actually, I would prefer to go and see them in a dark room with other people. Especially the sexy videos.

Once I sat next to this woman I liked, and we were watching something and I forget what, but she made a wet noise! I have no idea how else to describe it. I have often wondered what she was doing! Sometimes I really do never find out these things.

My perfect idea of the afterlife is that we just get to ask questions and get answers. Like “What was the wet noise> Who ate the pube cake> What was HER name> Did Jesus really live and do all those things> What did the very first language sound like> What were those lights over Cranberry Flats> And why oh why do people go crazy>” And then I could move on, ya know, these things wouldn’t be WEIGHING ON MY MIND!

But maybe life will always insist on keeping it’s mystery. There will always be more questions.

Mister likes Pistachios, Cheezies, and Hot Rods. He’s quite the Sausage.

Do I like being marginalized> I don’t know why I am asking myself this question. It’s just that I was going to write “Do I like living on the fringes of society>” and then thought I was really meaning marginalization. In either case, the answer is no. It leads to a lot of hunger and issues with clothing and proper housing. Not that I am currently suffering from any of those issues, but I have in the past and then the future is always unclear. I’ve also seen a lot of other persons with overlapping marginalized identities struggle for basic things other people take for granted. Like finding a job, or being able to support themselves on a limited income. It’s rough.

Plus if there aren’t any representations of your particular situation, you feel the need to create some so you don’t feel so alone. Actually, that is probably a good part about being marginalized, the creative things which come out of living with that kind of oppression.

Not that you should oppress people just so they make good art. OMG! Colonizing the arts!

I work with video, but that was invented in like, 1951. It’s not a precontact specifically European medium. I dunno, there really are very few mediums out there that only one group of people uses. Like, everyone’s had some kind of paint and some kind of fabric design and you know, the list goes on. Everyone carves! I used to do carving. But I dunno, that was a long time ago.

Diversified Diversions and Career Building: The Themes of 2010

Last year I was trying to tackle WAY too many precise goals, and accomplished maybe ONE of them. I AM NOW MARGINALLY CLEANER! I did not kick any of my addictions for significant periods of time though.

So THIS year, I have decided to take a different route towards the same end. I am going to find MORE fun things to do that DON’T fall under the category of substance use. And I am going to try to do them sober. It’s a challenge, but if I can get the hang of it, I hope to channel it into accomplishing my second goal for 2010: Building my filmyvideoey career up, and also getting more employable skills.

It’s fun to work on my career, except for sometimes, like when I have to get it in the mail before 4:30 or whatever. Deadlines stress me out. It’s probably why my hair is so thin. ha ha!

Anyway, those are the two personal things I am going to try and work on this year. The end result will be a more active career again with the possibility of finding a way to be a mostly full time artist, and also the ability to have fun without getting blotto, and thus being able to have a broader sense of life than the relatively narrow constraints I live in with my addictions. I’m tired of wanting to leave places so I can go home and get stoned. I’d like to be able to just stay drinking tea with a friend until the bus before bedtime, not caring about sucking on some burning leaves. But I’m not ready to completely give up. Just be more well rounded. Even though I just found out my local offsale does delivery.

And I want to make more INCREDIBLE art and get more FAMOUS and fall in love with a beautiful WOMAN who will be in love with me for being a FAMOUS ARTIST! Well not quite, that sounds kinda shallow actually.

So maybe I will write about That this year.

I also realize I haven’t written about a major thing which has happened in my family. I don’t want to disrespect anyone, so I think I will write about it and how it is impacting us another time when I am not sleepy. Just suffice it to say that my cousin who was my best friend when I was a kid got off his meds and got sick and hurt himself pretty badly. And he is in the hospital right now and those of us who are spiritual are praying and those of us who are atheists are sending positive thoughts to him. He’s getting visits from us and his mom is here with him. I am glad that the police were able to come to his aid and I really wish he could see. It’s made me think a lot about how fragile humans are. And how much I wish he knew he was loved.

Welcoming 2010

Well remember I said I was going to that rave Well, I didn’t think I would be able to stay the whole while. I was sure I was going to get bored and feel old and come home. But I didn’t!! I had a wicked time with these friends of Carrie’s and we danced and drank and sat and went out into minus 30 weather for smokes until about 5:30 when we headed over to Carrie’s and just hung out talking and picking records to play in this intensely random way. It was lovely! And we got to talk NERD talk, like software and equipment and art! And we traded bad art stories and stayed up. And we stayed up until 10 and then I came back home cause they were all preparing for bed. I usually don’t sleep at all after a night like that.
It was so much fun and I made new friends!!! I’m glad the night turned out like that, it was more fun than last year. Not all of my New Year’s Eves are memorable, but this one was.
OMG! And New years right at midnight was the seventeenth anniversary of me discovering I was a lesbian. I was hugging my cousin’s girlfriend at midnight (god, she’s probably reading this right now!) and I just realized I really REALLY liked her breasts pressing against mine. And that was when the light went on and I was like, This IS SERIOUS! I’m fourteen years old and I’m a lesbian! And I knew immediately too that I had a definite preference for women. I realized no man felt right to hug, but she DID and it was amazing and also terrifying at the same time. And I didn’t know what the next step was. I kept a terrible secret for a month and twenty two days and then I sat my mother down and came out to her and immediately burst into tears because it was so SCARY! And my mom was totally cool and picked me up some lesbian books from the Ottawa Women’s Bookstore while she was doing a council jury. And she was the very first person I ever told.
My mum and I are kind of a set. when I lived in Vancouver I would call her every day, sometimes just with nothing to say but I wanted to hear her breathing. And since moving back here I have been able to spend a lot more time with her.
One really nice thing I did with my mom this New Year’s Eve was I cooked a totally new recipe from Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution cookbook. Ground Beef Wellington. It was SOOOOOOO good! It was impressive and not that hard to make. And because my apartment was clean we spent time at MY place for a change. Mum only ever comes inside to clean otherwise, and then she never wants to just goof around. But my new years project totally spruced the place up and she actually took her coat off and hung around!!
It is so nice to come home to a clean house.
My kitten is getting in the way of me writing. She likes to be as close to me as my pet dog, no, even closer because he doesn’t mind spending time on the couch while I’m at the desk.
My kitten still has no name. She is so cute, but I haven’t hit on the right name for her yet. She’s really loving and funny and sweet. She’s SO different than Schrodinger. Schrodinger was more independent.
Well, I don’t have much else to say. I could prattle on but somehow I feel like my ability to think of something of importance has abandoned me.

More Better New Years Eve!!

Happy New Year’s eve!!! I am going to a rave named after sex workers standing in the cold. Kinda strange that bit I know. My friend Carrie Gates is VJing at it so she scored me a ticket. I am not sure what to expect, I haven’t been to a rave in a really long time. I don’t know how late I will be able to stay out either, I kind of want to wind up chilling in my apartment for the later part of the night. I find that much safer if altered states of mind are involved, to end up back in a residential property with a small handful of friends. Or one other friend. Or my cousin who sleeps on the couch sometimes when she wants to stay past the late bus.

I won’t be seeing my cousin though, she’s doing something else. So it will be kinda weird, logically we usually just always hang out with each other. But I’m trying to branch out a bit friend-wise. Just because it’s getting lonely when it’s always my one best friend. I need some variety. I need MORE people to sleep on the couch, or in my bed. But probably the couch. It’s a good couch for sleeping on.

My mom and Laurel and I have this ongoing joke about the perfect personals ad to hook a Native man would have pictures of the television with cable box, the opened well stocked refrigerator, and the couch. It’s perfect really, all the essentials are there! The rest is just minor details.

For anyone really, that is pretty sexy when I think about it. I would answer a personals ad like that.

I wanted to take pictures of my clean apartment and post them online, but I haven’t washed the dog stain off the floor yet and I feel like it would just disturb people. And I don’t want to wash the floor right now because it’s late and I don’t want to keep the neighbor up. Plus Mum always said cleaning at night was a sign of madness. And I’m trying not to do so many mad things. Maybe just a few. Writing at night could be considered mad, but not if you knew writers.

Wait, let me back up again, does it seem creepy that I would post pics of my clean apartment online/ I didn’t think so myself. I once took pictures of a moderately messy apartment of mine and emailed them to a friend who I was commiserating with on living messy lives. But I never sent her the worst mess, I was just too ashamed. Ha ha! But I’m just so PROUD of having a clean apartment, I want to show it off. But I don’t like having that many people in my apartment at a time. It’s like a virtual tour. But the facebook version.

Horders is an intense program. I’m glad I’ve kept A&E so I could watch that and Intervention.

Anyway, Mum said that since I cleaned up she could see that I wasn’t a hoarder, I was just lazy.

Is that better/

Or as my cousin would say, More Better/

My question mark key no longer functions, so all of those forward slashes should be replaced by a question mark, because I’m the author and I say so.